Third Reich Cinema

The film tells the story of the blond “singing sailor” Hannes Kröger who works in a St. Pauli club on the Große Freiheit 7, and falls in love with a girl. But she prefers his rival Willem and Hannes returns to the sea.Read More »

Aspiring singer Susanne takes over for ham actor Viktor at a small cabaret in Berlin where he works a woman impersonator and per chance she’s discovered by an agent, who thinks, that she really is a man. She becomes famous, but her situation becomes troublesome, when she falls in love with Robert. imdb.Read More »

Though it was accepted as standard entertainment upon its first release, the German Jugend (Youth) has in recent years been perceived as an implicitly pro-Nazi tract. Adapted by Thea Von Harbou from a controversial 19th century play by Max Hulls, the story concerns a young girl named Annchen (Kristina Soderbaum), who from childhood onward has had her judgment warped by the self-righteous proclamations of a fanatical priest (Eugene Klopfer). After her first sexual experience, Annchen is so overwhelmed by guilt that she commits suicide, profoundly affecting the lives of those closest to her. Some critics have suggested that the film advises its audience to beware false prophets-except those wearing brown shirts and armbands, who will lead the populace from the opiate of religion to the glories of National Socialism. The fact that Jugend was directed by Kristina Soderbaum’s husband Viet Harlan, one of the German film industry’s leading torch-bearers for the Third Reich, has not been a point in its favor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideRead More »

Synopsis:
As the title “The Queen’s Heart” suggests, this early German black and white version of Mary Queen of Scott’s eventful reign and death focuses on her emotional perception rather lyrically, with some songs, mainly by her. Starting in the Tower, awaiting and receiving her sentence to the ax from the English court, where Elisabeth I chose to remain absent in person, we flash back to Mary’s arrival after a long exile at the sophisticated, splendidly hedonistic French royal court, where she was raised as a Catholic, in her people’s eyes effeminate or even depraved, elegant pleasure-accustomed lady, at utter odds with the stern Scottish protestantism of John Knox as well as England’s Anglicanism.Read More »

Synopsis:
A biographical film of Otto von Bismarck, the Prime Minister of Prussia, and how he and his policies – including aggressive war – helped to unite Germany.Read More »

The most incendiary of Nazi Germany’s anti-British films, and one of the most audaciously cynical movies ever made. Conceived by Joseph Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry as a propagandistic blockbuster, this lavish production leaves no stone unturned in its bitter indictment of Great Britain, which at the time (early 1941) stood alone as Germany’s wartime foe. In its historical re-enactment of the Second Boer War, Ohm Krüger depicts Britain as a relentlessly aggressive power, hell-bent on world domination; the film’s remarkable set pieces feature a scotch-swilling Queen Victoria, a cruelly conniving Cecil Rhodes and a Winston Churchill look-alike who presides over a murderous concentration camp. On the Boer side stands saintly “Uncle” Krüger, portrayed as a model of simple dignity and unerring moral right by one of the world cinema’s greatest actors, Emil Jannings. Read More »

Synopsis:
Anti-semitic Nazi propaganda “biography” of the Rothschilds, a German Jewish family whose members rose to the top of the European banking community during the Napoleonic era.Read More »

Perhaps just as integral to Nazi film history as Leni Riefenstahl was largely forgotten “Jew Suss” director Veit Harlan. This documentary explores the life and career of Harlan, the expert film artisan responsible for the controversial 1940 feature still regarded as the most anti-Semitic production ever made. Includes home movies, archival footage, and interviews with family members who grapple with Harlan’s dark legacy.Read More »

Counterfeit money is discovered near the Bodensee. The investigators for the “Reichszentrale für Falschmünzerei” get wind of it and open up an investigation. When the band of counterfeiters try to recruit a young graphic artist into their ranks, he quickly rats on them to the police. The investigation soon leads to Switzerland, where the nest of criminals is stormed with the help of the Swiss police. (rarefilmsandmore.com)Read More »